In his letter “No thank you” (Times Argus, Sept. 6) Mr. Keith Zandy asks several questions of proponents of single-payer health care. One of these is: “When your health care decisions fall into the hands of a cold-hearted bureaucrat, and you are denied treatment that your doctor recommends due to bureaucratic red tape, will you regret your foolishness in putting your life and liberties in the hands of the government?”

My answer is no. I have much experience with both private and public health insurance. The foolishness I would regret is keeping the status quo as it is. During my time in private health insurance, rejected treatments and claim denials by “cold-hearted bureaucrats” (these were private insurance bureaucrats, not government ones) were routine. Another private insurer simply increased my copays without telling me. I am now, thankfully, on VHAP, a public health care program, and have yet to suffer a single treatment refusal, a claim denial, or a copay jacked up without my knowledge.

Mr. Zandy also suggested that socialist “Utopian philosophies, well intentioned as they may be, will prove to be another detriment to an already broken economy and society.” How so? Are fire departments, emergency rescue departments, libraries, police departments and such “another detriment?” Are public schools a detriment to an “already broken economy?” Then there is Medicare, which insures our senior citizens. These are everyday socialistic and utopian benefits and philosophies at work, things that help keep our society together.

With all due respect to Mr. Zandy’s point of view, “no, thank you.” I have been there before.